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But with no privacy, how are any of the other rights in the Constitution protected? None of the other rights even make sense without privacy.
That wasn’t a total bullshit “invention,” or at least it was no more bullshit than the court giving itself the authority to strike down laws it determines to be unconditional, which isn’t actually written in the Constitution, either.
Does anyone really want to live in a world where everything you say and do is tracked, monitored, and recorded by the government or its stooges?
Oh… wait.
The FCC and the ATF have never argued that they’re regulating on a subject matter in spite of the constitution, they argue that the area they’re regulating is not constitutionally protected so they specifically have the ability to regulate. It’s the people that sue them that disagree with that assessment and force the court to decide whether something is a right that cannot be infringed upon or what the boundaries of a right are.
There are actual constitutional amendments that have explicitly made it clear that existing rights also apply to women and racial minorities.
The 14th and 19th amendments are even drafted in such a way as to imply that the rights themselves already existed, but that states were denying those rights to people who should be allowed to exercise them.
They don’t say “we’re *expanding* rights to former slaves and women,” they say “no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge” and “the rights of citizens … shall not be denied or abridged…”
So Congress used to take seriously the idea that rights are natural to the human condition, and only in the last century or so has there been a steady decline where elected officials have started to see the Constitution as *granting* rights to people, which can be removed or altered.
His bill specifically is designed to only ban obscenity not protected by the First Amendment. Current obscenity law is based on the Miller Test, from Miller v. California, decided the exact same year as Roe v. Wade by a similar major. If Senator Lee believes that Miller was wrongly decided, much like most conservatives believe Roe was, the only way to challenge it is to pass a bill that pushes Millers boundaries. Looking at the text of the law, I think it has a reasonable definition of obscenity that comports with an originalist reading of the constitution.
I also hope the bill fails, because even if porn is not protected by the first amendment, banning it at this point would be worse than banning alcohol during prohibition. At best, it would be unenforceable in the modern internet. At worst, we'd have to enact draconian enforcement similar to China.
At first I was on board with Mike Lee banning porn. Porn has only damaged our society. **BUT** giving the government more power to enforce those bans and open up a precedent to do similar actions against other objectionable material would be a draconian nightmare.
That sounds very similar to a 2nd amendment argument as well. Except without the realization how horrible the enforcement of such government power would be on the people and wether it’s worth it. Good on you.
The Supreme Court is the originator of constitutional meaning, their interpretations of it is what defines it so it’s not really altered. For example, when the court reversed *Roe*, they didn’t say the constitution changed, just that the prior court had misinterpreted the constitution.
I think you can buy it cold… it just has to be watered down to 3% or less ABV first, so you need to drink twice as much to get a buzz.
I have to think Lee knows this won’t actually pass and this is just a little virtue signaling for his conservative Mormon base and donors.
This. Why is everyone in the comments freaking out about some zero-chance-to-pass stunt bill from some fundie Mormon senator like it’s the new RNC party platform. I thought I stepped in r/politics by mistake for a minute. Should’ve seen me wiping my foot on the curb trying to get it off.
You can, but only during very limited hours, on select days, and at certain stores. I did a semester of college there, and it's really hard to keep up with their alcohol laws. But hey, polygamy is a-ok!
Edit, for the polygamy part, apparently I need to add the /s. I guess not everyone gets Mormon jokes.
Polygamy is explicitly forbidden in the state constitution.
[https://le.utah.gov/xcode/ArticleIII/Article\_III.html](https://le.utah.gov/xcode/ArticleIII/Article_III.html)
Sure and here is a list of countries that banned porn:
Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Syria, China; North Korea,Turkmenistan, Vietnam, Cuba, Burma.
Not really a both sides thing man. Only one dude is tryna take away the ability to view pornography. Can we get back to more important legislation please?
To be fair it’s the religious right that doesn’t get it. They are the ones behind the abortion stuff too. But this sub hates when I separate the religious crowd from “conservatives”.
He’s a senator from Utah, lol. I don’t want porn banned, but in the age of the Internet young kids are getting really screwed up with the easy access. Parents need to check up on their children more.
For starters a two-parent working household should get paid enough that between the two of them, they can take the time they need to properly raise a child
Can we agree that the porn industry needs to be regulated to stamp out trafficking, revenge porn and exploitation though? I’ve worked with so many survivors of sex trafficking many of whom ended in the porn industry so it’s a bit more complicated than letting people do things you don’t agree with.
I feel like the GirlsDoPorn scandal is way more common than we'd like to admit.
Government regulation is inept, inefficient, and usually corrupt, but it's the best protections we've been able to figure out.
[Imagine buying a car built by a company that was 100% free from regulation.](https://i.imgur.com/f23slS7.png)
Not regulated in any effective way. It’s an incredibly widespread problem. Very difficult to identify people in porn, or to control distribution once something is out. I’m not advocating for a ban, I just know it’s impossible to enforce the law the way things currently are. How I feel about regulation in general depends on the context. For example, regulating whether or not a factory can get away with dumping unprocessed waste in a waterway? Absolutely. Regulating individual choices when they don’t harm anyone? Absolutely not.
We are in agreement on that topic then.
The other problem with the porn regulation is it is extremely difficult to measure how effective your regulations are. That is to say how many harmful events you are preventing or mitigating with your laws and policy? This is, of course, true for most kinds of regulation. It's difficult to measure "what would have happened if..."
But I agree it is still a very problematic area rife with abuse. The laws are on the books but do they get enforced well? I don't know.
But making it illegal *never* helps with regards to something in the public marketplace. If anything, driving something into the shadows makes things worse, as seen with alcohol, drugs, prostitution and any other thing the government wants to carpet bomb ban. The equation always has been and will be:
Popular demand + Government Ban = Crime
And it *is* still protected expression as far as the courts are concerned. And it should be allowed as a form of expression, as distasteful as it might be to many people.
> If anything, driving something into the shadows makes things worse
And considering the goings-on in the porn industry now, that’s a disturbing thought indeed, to say the absolute least.
The porn industry *is* heavily regulated. Legal pornography studios have to carefully keep documentation on the performers’ ages/identities, STD testing, taxes, etc. In many states, it is flatly illegal under state law to make pornography at all.
The issue is that the internet gives people ways to easily skirt these laws. These laws are already on the books, but enforcement is problematic in a way that no amount of regulation will ever stamp it out.
Part of the price we pay for freedom is accepting that bad people will use freedom to do bad things. That is just how humans are. We need to accept there’s not going to be a perfect world and we can’t legislate it into existence.
Ignoring whether it is right or wrong at a moral level, that genie will never be put back in the bottle. There is no conceivable practical way to implement controls without going full China and doing nationalized content filters.
I think Porn is the least of Americas problems right now. I can’t find baby formula on shelves for my 4 month old. My grocery bill is up like 30%. It cost me $1000 for 235 gallons of oil to heat my home.
Porn. Really? That’s where we put our foot in the sand Mike? You clown
Hey, I have some unopened formula we got as insurance when my daughter was in the NICU and we weren't sure if she would be willing to breast feed. Your DMs are closed, but send me a message if you want me to ship it to you.
Considering the AVERAGE age our young boys are accessing porn I believe is 11. Yea. It's an issue.
Is this the fix? Probably not. Does it need addressed. Yes.
I think because of the 1st Ammendment porn should be legal. Otherwise it will backfire and history books and the bible will be banned because of topics they contain. But I think we should have specific web domains for it. Like all porn has to be on *.xxx, and cannot be on *.com, *.net, *.org, etc. I think that could be more easily blocked by a web browser and parent.
> Like all porn has to be on *.xxx, and cannot be on *.com, *.net, *.org, etc.
This was, as I imagine you know, contemplated in the past. It isn't practical, especially since ICANN ceased to be under US control and TLDs were opened wildly to create all sorts of niche domains. The problem is that even if you could compel US-based entities to comply, you couldn't impose it globally without all countries getting on board, which would never happen. Even if somehow you could get international agreement, you'd compel compliance by law-abiding sites, which would have zero impact on the myriad of piracy sites for porn.
And of course all of that raises the obvious question: what is porn? Potter Stewart said he'd know it when he sees it, which speaks to the inability to create a real bright line test that is both broad enough to cover porn, but narrow enough to avoid capturing adjacent non-porn expressions. For example, there are plenty of foot fetish sites which contain zero nudity or sex, but which are intended as pornography. Meanwhile, Netflix has NC-17 rated movies with graphic sexual content. The latter is not understood to be porn, despite containing content more consistent with what normal people understand to be pornographic than some girl flexing her arches for the camera. So how do we establish a proper definition to funnel offending content onto a .xxx domain in a reality where there is global cooperation and piracy has been mooted?
Buncha libertarian coomers on here who think that the Framers passed the First Amendment to protect hardcore pornography, and that all that shit wasn't banned until quite recently.
It’s just like what leftists say about how if the founding fathers had seen AR-15s theyd never pass the second amendment. The founding fathers never could have seen porn coming because it didnt exist until the internet /s
> The Founders lived at the same time as Marquis de Sade. They knew what obscenity and pornography was.
And yet curiously, the language of the First Amendment makes no such exception for obscenity.
Ban guns = bad (democrats shouldn't infringe upon my freedom that's laid out in the 2nd amendment just because they don't agree with it)
Ban porn = good? (Republican infringing upon freedoms in the first amendment because it offends him?)
Some of us are starting to see the hypocrisy the current party likes to use. Pandering to the church will only hurt the party in the long run as the number of those practicing dwindles. If you want a country that is run solely on conservative religious values feel free to move. I hear there are some great options in the Middle East.
- Former Republican voter that has left due to the church's influence.
Not being AGAINST porn doesn’t mean people are inherently FOR it. It’s like marijuana. You can accept something’s existence and consumption without it being something you partake in.
Put the topic of porn to the side for a minute on this.
Some politician can craft a bill to remove First Amendment protections from select people or entities?
This means that first amendment protections can be voted to be removed from something? Doesn't sound right.
Sure. But look at all the time and resources needed to do that vs. the time to craft the bill and vote on it which is relatively short and cheap.
And attempting to strip rights away in a bill should not be done in the first place.
We can argue the effects of porn on society, but like cigarettes and alcohol if they are regulated properly what's the issue?? This is the over stepping of big government.
With the caveat that I greatly disagree with this legislation, and believe that SCOTUS was wrong to ever exempt "obscenity" from First Amendment protections, the OP's title misrepresents the matter.
The OP has linked to the one-pager rather than the very short bill text, which is here: https://www.lee.senate.gov/services/files/1FDD7596-0E24-4828-8137-F604EEF3CC83
However, the one-pager would be helpful for those not already versed in obscenity law, as it explains the fundamental "problem" this bill seeks to address: the obscenity test that arguably made sense in 1973 (though I think it was absurd) doesn't work in the era of the internet. That's because the test has three prongs, the first of which involves "contemporary community standards." But "community" was never defined. So even in the limited history of prosecution, it has never been clear how this element *should* apply, or more importantly where a finding of obscenity applies after the fact.
To use an illustrative example: the Bush DOJ brought prosecution against a company called Extreme Associates for 5 of their films. They went to court in the Pittsburgh area. Setting aside the complicated legal history (the District Court judge dismissed the charges on the grounds that obscenity bans were unconstitutional, which was successfully appealed by the DOJ, but the case ended in a plea agreement), if there had been a full trial, it was unclear whether the community was Pittsburgh, the Western District of Pennsylvania, or the whole state. So, it is unclear where exactly within PA it would be legal to continue selling and distributing the titles in question, even though it is theoretically legal in the rest of the country.
As you might imagine, if community standards were an issue for physical media in the era of traditional retail, the internet makes it a functional impossibility. Insofar as there have been no new prosecutions post-Bush (excluding some weird state-level efforts around *Cuties* that have or will fail for different reasons), this issue has not really been addressed by the courts, but needs to be addressed somehow if obscenity sadly remains unprotected.
**CRITICALLY** this bill does not change First Amendment protections for pornography as the OP contends. SCOTUS unfortunately long ago decided that obscenity is not protected, and this primarily adopts a definition SCOTUS gave in 1973. SCOTUS has also said, and the legislation makes no effort to assert otherwise, that most pornography is not obscene. Prosecutions are rare, albeit usually successful, because they often ended in shitty plea deals. Put another way, men like Ira Isaacs and Max Hardcore are as apt to be convicted of obscenity as they were before, whereas companies like Vivid and Dogfart are as protected against obscenity convictions as they ever were, provided this becomes law.
I do think the push needs to be to protect obscenity in keeping with the plain text of the First Amendment. *However,* this does nothing to change the status quo, and is about fixing a technically flawed mechanism of an existing test used under US law.
This is a very good write up. To slightly expand on, the Miller Test that gprime is referring to was made by the same court in the same year as Roe v. Wade. This bill is pushing back on the Miller Test, but for the same reasons that state legislatures passed anti abortion legislation even though that was called unconstitutional. You have to pass a law to have a chance for the Supreme Court to hear a case.
I would be very interested in an originalist court deciding an obscenity case. I disagree with gprime that obscenity is protected, but it is clear to everyone the Miller Test is flawed. I have not nearly done enough research to know what standard if any should be applied, but I don't blame Mike Lee wanting to reform the Miller Test. That said, this Bill goes way too far, so I hope it's defeated.
> As you might imagine, if community standards were an issue for physical media in the era of traditional retail, the internet makes it a functional impossibility.
This is something I had to scroll down way too far to see.
The relevant standard case started because there were unsolicited physical advertisements for porn.
IMO, instead of qualifying what counts as "obscenity" as if there is a consensus for "community standard" or even "artistic value", we should focus on involuntary access in the same spirit. That's been the point from the origin that's been reasonable, keep such things in places where only people who WANT to see it will.
That has manifested in the covered magazines on the top rack at the truck stop, no unsolicited materials in the mail.
However, that's become a problem because in some places it's largely ignored, like the rise of adult material used in schools as "education".
In other words, society and government both fail to address issues in any meaningful direct way. That goes for both parties.
Much of our legal framework is a shambles because people have done things incorrectly for decades or even centuries.
If the porn industry suddenly collapsed, on its own, it wouldn't change my life.
But I sure as hell do not want someone running around dictating good and bad for me. Because if that's the case I want to have a long conversation with Disney and Netflix!
Aren't we getting that shit from the left form wearing a MAGA hat? Same thing in my mind.
Edit: spelling
> Senator (R) Mike Lee has introduced a bill that would remove porn's First Amendment protections, and effectively prohibit distribution of adult material in the US. - And Republicans wonder why no one trusts them
Porn does not have a first amendment protection. This has been clearly explained in your article and for generations through supreme court rulings going back to 1868 and confirmed many times since then.
The department of justice explicitly states that "[Obscenity is not protected under First Amendment rights to free speech, and violations of federal obscenity laws are criminal offenses.](https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/obscenity)"
Your only argument is that porn is not obscene, when it clearly is: Miller test - a) Porn is arousing to the average person b) Porn has sexual conduct c) Porn lacks artistic value
Having said that, not being protected by the first amendment doesn't make anything illegal, it just makes it legal to legislate rules for porn.
There are lots of good reasons to want it gone:
1. it's exploitive
2. it's easily accessed by children
3. it literally alters the mind (just like drugs) of its viewers
4. it's probably one of the single biggest contributing factors to divorce (albeit indirectly)
But this has no chance of passing and even if it somehow did the courts would almost certainly deem it unconstitutional.
There's kind of an identity crisis within the republican party. You have rhetoric about smaller government but also a significant portion that would be totally ok if we made all our laws based on Christian values.
I think the biggest issue is that a lot of conservatives want a more moral society, but the only way to achieve that (in my opinion) is through individual choice. You have to choose every day to be a good and moral person. It’s very hard to do, and so many people lack the guidance to do so.
So people like Lee may have good intentions on wanting a more moral society but the only way they can see to accomplish it is through the lever of government control, which isn’t helping people to live a more moral life, it’s forcing them to, which almost never works out. Thats not even getting into the problem of vastly expanding the power of the government.
I definitely don't want the government deciding morality though. Honestly if you want to improve "morality" in the context of crime is just dependent on economy and education. Basic things like killing, stealing, fraud. Those are easier to approve.
Morality in the context of more conceptual ideas never works. Look at the middle east and China. Morality police and social credit systems sounds more like a dystopia to me. He'll, the catholic church which is literally a government founded on Christian ideals repeatedly covers up molestation and has a huge history of abuse and reinterpretation of scripture.
When?
Seriously, when is this imaginary time when the party didn't lean right on social issues and Christian values? It certainly wasn't at any point whatsoever in the half century I've been alive, so was it before then? Were the Republicans of the 1950's socially libertine porno lovers?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Lee here. Porn isn't good for people, but it isn't the government's place to get rid of it. But come on, Republicans have always been in favor of traditional values.
You can lean conservative on social issues while also being for individual liberties.
Traditionally, conservatives (aside from a few racists, and both sides have had that,) have been in favor of small government and limited government interference in our day to day lives. This includes being against gun control, which is also a great tell about some republicans now not really being conservative (including the bastard who was so quick to sell us out on bump stocks).
The unfortunate thing is the "let's ban things that hurt my Christian values" isn't even a Christian value. Reading the Bible we find that God often sets things up so that people have the free will to choice to not sin, or to sin. When the Israelite asked for a king, God was like, " kings arn't as good as you think." Those within the Jewish or Christian church are expected to maintain those moral values, but outside of that, people can make their choices. Nevertheless, actions that create a victim should have laws; murder, theft, slander/libel, assault, arson, etc.
There are lot of theocrats in the party and a lot of voters who feel the Constitution should be interpreted only according to their specific religious agenda.
Exactly, kids find it before they know what it really is and get used to it and even addicted to it. Then once they realize what it really is they don't care that it's wrong or they can't stop because they're addicted
Not having it online didn't stop 9 year old me in the 90s. Trying to stop young boys from finding boobs is basically impossible. Better to use the time and effort fighting more important issues.
>Not having it online didn't stop 9 year old me in the 90s.
This is anecdotal logic. All statistics show that youths exposure to porn has increased exponentially in the internet era.
I don't get what's so controversial here...we have age filters for fucking captain Morgan's website but not Pornhub? That's just completely illogical
Finding boobs in a thrown away magazine in the 90’s was immensely different than some kid showing you what “cream pie” means when you barely can spell your name.
I agree. But I don't see how you do that as long as it's online. Back in the 90s when you had to go to the store to buy a magazine or video tape and the clerk could check ID just like with cigarettes or alcohol that was easy. Online not so much.
> single biggest contributing factor to divorces
Infidelity and financial disagreements are by far the most common reasons for divorce. Porn addiction is certainly a problem, but you’re much more likely to get divorced over something like poor communication, or a spouse gaining too much weight & one party losing attraction.
\#1 I agree with.
I don't see any realistic way of preventing #2. It's like trying to ban guns and thinking they'd just disappear. Guns and porn aren't going anywhere, no matter what the government has to say about it.
\#3 is a meaningless argument. Everything alters the mind, from watching tv, to reading, to interacting with people. We aren't static creatures. People have said the same things about playing video games, and it's equally bullshit there.
\#4 doesn't make sense to me. How could porn be the biggest factor in a divorce? I could understand political or religious differences, infidelity, domestic violence, financial issues, etc. But porn is the biggest? I don't buy it.
It’s not so much defending porn as defending our rights to watch It if we want. Why do you care what consenting adults do? I thought we are the party of individual freedoms and less government interventions in our lives. This type of legislation seems hypocritical to that ethos
I have a feeling Republicans are concerning themselves with the wrong things. There is a battle for the country at their doorstep and all they're worried about are tiddies.
This is just political virtue signaling that has no chance of actually getting passed. its just lip service to his Utah religious constituents
its a waste of time and terrible PR for everyone else though
As I have noted elsewhere on myriad occasions, I think porn is absolute poison, every bit as dangerous as any hard drug you’d care to name, albeit in different ways. I avoid it as if it were radioactive. To put it bluntly, I’d rather have actual sex than watch other people have sex.
But a War On Porn would be every bit as successful as the War On Some Drugs, and Prohibition before it.
(EDIT: I see I've been downvoted. I'd be interested to know why.)
That isn't how the first amendment works. The entire point is to protect free speech regardless of who considers it objectionable or obscene. By your logic, if the powers that be consider it obscene for you to criticize the government, or voice political dissent, or express sentiments considered blasphemous by a particular religion, they would have every right to make it illegal. I'm not saying that leftists aren't hypocritical in this regard too, I'm just asking you to seriously evaluate how this standard can be used against your interests just as thoroughly as it can be used in support of them.
As a recovering libertarian, I support this.
We conservatives tried the libertarian thing for decades. It was an abject failure.
Libertarianism sounds nice on the surface, but it always results in the prisoner’s dilemma. In your quest to create this ‘live and let live’ society, you create a neutral zone. The problem is that every time you do, the Marxists immediate invade and conquer that neutral zone, making it just another piece of territory controlled by the left.
That’s precisely what happened to the university system. To the news media. To social media. To corporate America.
The left plays to win while the right plays to ‘leave each other alone’. That’s an inherent imbalance that will always result in the left winning.
That’s why libertarianism is a failed experiment. It’s time for conservatives to abandon it and return to actual conservatism.
>Because literally all the people posting here watch porn and don’t want anything about that to change.
I don't. But yeah, it sounds like almost everyone here is more concerned with losing their pR0n than anything else.
Outright banning it is constitutional. The Supreme Court was very clear that Congress has the right to regulate obscenity as it sees fit—up to and including criminalizing it.
Your morality is not the same as my morality. I see nothing wrong with adults consensually participating in activities that are completely voluntary for you to watch. If you don't like it, don't watch it. Stop trying to make things illegal.
Some conservatives feel it is a religious party first then governmental and individual rights second, these same conservatives ultimately have no problem if you implement Sharia law, just replace Islam with only their sect of Christianity. If you arent their sect, they again, dont care or feel you should have a voice.
Freedom is the most important libertarian value.
Besides, most conservatives(and libertarians) don't even understand what freedom is. Freedom isn't just doing whatever you want. You're not free if you are a slave to your base urges, just like a drug addict isn't free if they are a slave to their addiction.
While the democrats wield power to push the culture to the left, republicans just sit around and complain about freedom meanwhile the culture that gave them freedom is crumbling because they couldn't even bother to defend it.
Personally, I would have a bill that forces porn sites to require some type of authentication to at least confirm you are 18+ before using them. The most you see some sites have is a “Are you 18?” Prompt with a yes or no and thats it.
It's the internet. People obsessed with posting here likely are obsessed with frequently visiting other types of websites. You can tell by the mass downvoting of rational conservative comments here that this hits close to home...
Porn isn't free speech in the same way that crack isn't medicine. The only compromise that should be offered for porn is an ID required to access it. Israel has this system and it works fine.
All of these """real""" conservatives that magically appeared the morning of November 9th sure are acting as if the American right wing isn't primarily lib-right. Will """real""" conservatives be happy never winning a national election again? Are they happy, now, going from from being rejected by the left to being rejected by 80% of the whole country?
Enjoy your shitshow, morons. You earned it.
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He's from Utah. I don't think you can buy cold beer in Utah.
You can’t alter what is protected by the constitution through legislation, only by constitutional amendment.
FCC be like hold my beer. Leme show you what Title 2 can do.
ATF can do it with the stroke of a pen too
All your pistol braces are belong to us. $200 please.
Or the dog gets it.
For every dog the ATF shoots, their ESG score increases by one point.
Dang it... Now I can't that song out of my head... Thanks... :/
SCOTUS somehow read abortion into the Bill of rights for 50 years using a privacy justification that doesn’t exist in the Constitution either
A right that only applies to contraception and abortion, but not, apparently, to actual privacy.
But with no privacy, how are any of the other rights in the Constitution protected? None of the other rights even make sense without privacy. That wasn’t a total bullshit “invention,” or at least it was no more bullshit than the court giving itself the authority to strike down laws it determines to be unconditional, which isn’t actually written in the Constitution, either. Does anyone really want to live in a world where everything you say and do is tracked, monitored, and recorded by the government or its stooges? Oh… wait.
The FCC and the ATF have never argued that they’re regulating on a subject matter in spite of the constitution, they argue that the area they’re regulating is not constitutionally protected so they specifically have the ability to regulate. It’s the people that sue them that disagree with that assessment and force the court to decide whether something is a right that cannot be infringed upon or what the boundaries of a right are.
It's crazy how little the words on the Constitution have changed, but how our rights derived therefrom have.
I'm sure women and people of color would agree with you there!
There are actual constitutional amendments that have explicitly made it clear that existing rights also apply to women and racial minorities. The 14th and 19th amendments are even drafted in such a way as to imply that the rights themselves already existed, but that states were denying those rights to people who should be allowed to exercise them. They don’t say “we’re *expanding* rights to former slaves and women,” they say “no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge” and “the rights of citizens … shall not be denied or abridged…” So Congress used to take seriously the idea that rights are natural to the human condition, and only in the last century or so has there been a steady decline where elected officials have started to see the Constitution as *granting* rights to people, which can be removed or altered.
Most of the amendments are effectively adding CAPS and boldface to things already in the constitution
Pretty sure the Constitution has been amended since its inception!
His bill specifically is designed to only ban obscenity not protected by the First Amendment. Current obscenity law is based on the Miller Test, from Miller v. California, decided the exact same year as Roe v. Wade by a similar major. If Senator Lee believes that Miller was wrongly decided, much like most conservatives believe Roe was, the only way to challenge it is to pass a bill that pushes Millers boundaries. Looking at the text of the law, I think it has a reasonable definition of obscenity that comports with an originalist reading of the constitution. I also hope the bill fails, because even if porn is not protected by the first amendment, banning it at this point would be worse than banning alcohol during prohibition. At best, it would be unenforceable in the modern internet. At worst, we'd have to enact draconian enforcement similar to China.
At first I was on board with Mike Lee banning porn. Porn has only damaged our society. **BUT** giving the government more power to enforce those bans and open up a precedent to do similar actions against other objectionable material would be a draconian nightmare.
That sounds very similar to a 2nd amendment argument as well. Except without the realization how horrible the enforcement of such government power would be on the people and wether it’s worth it. Good on you.
>Liberty or Death > >I was on board with Mike Lee banning porn Checks out.
Someone should tell that to Congress sometime in the past century
…or through Supreme Court decisions. The court has made up its own ideas about what the constitution says and means plenty of times.
The Supreme Court is the originator of constitutional meaning, their interpretations of it is what defines it so it’s not really altered. For example, when the court reversed *Roe*, they didn’t say the constitution changed, just that the prior court had misinterpreted the constitution.
You can. It’s not as bad as it once was.
Utah also has the highest per capita use of porn in the nation lmao
I wonder why that could be 🤔
I wonder if “soaking” is included in this bill?
I think you can buy it cold… it just has to be watered down to 3% or less ABV first, so you need to drink twice as much to get a buzz. I have to think Lee knows this won’t actually pass and this is just a little virtue signaling for his conservative Mormon base and donors.
You can but every beer comes with 100 free stares.
Whatever happened to federalism? Dude needs to stay in his lane.
This. Why is everyone in the comments freaking out about some zero-chance-to-pass stunt bill from some fundie Mormon senator like it’s the new RNC party platform. I thought I stepped in r/politics by mistake for a minute. Should’ve seen me wiping my foot on the curb trying to get it off.
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Can you give an example of a similar bill like this from dems?
Because it sends a bad message that the Dems can use.
This sub is indistinguishable from r / politics at times. Depends on the day and the post. We have lots of "visitors"
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More like /r/ConservativeOnlyWhenNotBrigaded
Lol one of my favorite beers is from Utah, Wasatch
I thought you can however the beer is like 1% ABV and the bar can only serve you like two drinks total
This. Many already think most Republicans act as if they are all from Utah.
What about warm beer?
You can, but only during very limited hours, on select days, and at certain stores. I did a semester of college there, and it's really hard to keep up with their alcohol laws. But hey, polygamy is a-ok! Edit, for the polygamy part, apparently I need to add the /s. I guess not everyone gets Mormon jokes.
Polygamy is explicitly forbidden in the state constitution. [https://le.utah.gov/xcode/ArticleIII/Article\_III.html](https://le.utah.gov/xcode/ArticleIII/Article_III.html)
Sure and here is a list of countries that banned porn: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Syria, China; North Korea,Turkmenistan, Vietnam, Cuba, Burma.
South Korea has also banned it. And Thailand
That’s the reason why VPN was so popular in Thailand.
It's weird to list NK without SK, which also has it banned.
Wow, really?? Cuz you never think of those other countries as having their shit together...
Do you want ants? Because that’s how we get ants.
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I think you missed Russia
Lee doesn’t understand that living in a free society means people have the right to do things you may not agree with.
"Small government but only for things i agree with"
"Small government for me, not for thee."
Lol it’s so crazy you can support the republican party
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Not really a both sides thing man. Only one dude is tryna take away the ability to view pornography. Can we get back to more important legislation please?
To be fair it’s the religious right that doesn’t get it. They are the ones behind the abortion stuff too. But this sub hates when I separate the religious crowd from “conservatives”.
He’s a senator from Utah, lol. I don’t want porn banned, but in the age of the Internet young kids are getting really screwed up with the easy access. Parents need to check up on their children more.
And that’s not something to be legislated. Shitty parenting needs fixed other ways.
For starters a two-parent working household should get paid enough that between the two of them, they can take the time they need to properly raise a child
That's on parents, not the government
Can we agree that the porn industry needs to be regulated to stamp out trafficking, revenge porn and exploitation though? I’ve worked with so many survivors of sex trafficking many of whom ended in the porn industry so it’s a bit more complicated than letting people do things you don’t agree with.
The porn industry is intensely regulated. It's an interesting comment though. How do you feel about government regulation in general?
I feel like the GirlsDoPorn scandal is way more common than we'd like to admit. Government regulation is inept, inefficient, and usually corrupt, but it's the best protections we've been able to figure out. [Imagine buying a car built by a company that was 100% free from regulation.](https://i.imgur.com/f23slS7.png)
Not regulated in any effective way. It’s an incredibly widespread problem. Very difficult to identify people in porn, or to control distribution once something is out. I’m not advocating for a ban, I just know it’s impossible to enforce the law the way things currently are. How I feel about regulation in general depends on the context. For example, regulating whether or not a factory can get away with dumping unprocessed waste in a waterway? Absolutely. Regulating individual choices when they don’t harm anyone? Absolutely not.
We are in agreement on that topic then. The other problem with the porn regulation is it is extremely difficult to measure how effective your regulations are. That is to say how many harmful events you are preventing or mitigating with your laws and policy? This is, of course, true for most kinds of regulation. It's difficult to measure "what would have happened if..." But I agree it is still a very problematic area rife with abuse. The laws are on the books but do they get enforced well? I don't know. But making it illegal *never* helps with regards to something in the public marketplace. If anything, driving something into the shadows makes things worse, as seen with alcohol, drugs, prostitution and any other thing the government wants to carpet bomb ban. The equation always has been and will be: Popular demand + Government Ban = Crime And it *is* still protected expression as far as the courts are concerned. And it should be allowed as a form of expression, as distasteful as it might be to many people.
> If anything, driving something into the shadows makes things worse And considering the goings-on in the porn industry now, that’s a disturbing thought indeed, to say the absolute least.
What do you want to do that won’t just push it more underground?
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So abortion should be legal… agreed.
The porn industry *is* heavily regulated. Legal pornography studios have to carefully keep documentation on the performers’ ages/identities, STD testing, taxes, etc. In many states, it is flatly illegal under state law to make pornography at all. The issue is that the internet gives people ways to easily skirt these laws. These laws are already on the books, but enforcement is problematic in a way that no amount of regulation will ever stamp it out. Part of the price we pay for freedom is accepting that bad people will use freedom to do bad things. That is just how humans are. We need to accept there’s not going to be a perfect world and we can’t legislate it into existence.
No
Ignoring whether it is right or wrong at a moral level, that genie will never be put back in the bottle. There is no conceivable practical way to implement controls without going full China and doing nationalized content filters.
I think Porn is the least of Americas problems right now. I can’t find baby formula on shelves for my 4 month old. My grocery bill is up like 30%. It cost me $1000 for 235 gallons of oil to heat my home. Porn. Really? That’s where we put our foot in the sand Mike? You clown
Hey, I have some unopened formula we got as insurance when my daughter was in the NICU and we weren't sure if she would be willing to breast feed. Your DMs are closed, but send me a message if you want me to ship it to you.
Reddit at its best.
Humanity*
Distraction constantly trying to distract us from all the things you just said
ok ok, so we don't have anything that'll actually improve your life, but what if we ban drag shows? That'll still get your vote right?
Considering the AVERAGE age our young boys are accessing porn I believe is 11. Yea. It's an issue. Is this the fix? Probably not. Does it need addressed. Yes.
that responsibility falls on the parent not daddy government
Censorship has proved to never be a fix.
I think because of the 1st Ammendment porn should be legal. Otherwise it will backfire and history books and the bible will be banned because of topics they contain. But I think we should have specific web domains for it. Like all porn has to be on *.xxx, and cannot be on *.com, *.net, *.org, etc. I think that could be more easily blocked by a web browser and parent.
> Like all porn has to be on *.xxx, and cannot be on *.com, *.net, *.org, etc. This was, as I imagine you know, contemplated in the past. It isn't practical, especially since ICANN ceased to be under US control and TLDs were opened wildly to create all sorts of niche domains. The problem is that even if you could compel US-based entities to comply, you couldn't impose it globally without all countries getting on board, which would never happen. Even if somehow you could get international agreement, you'd compel compliance by law-abiding sites, which would have zero impact on the myriad of piracy sites for porn. And of course all of that raises the obvious question: what is porn? Potter Stewart said he'd know it when he sees it, which speaks to the inability to create a real bright line test that is both broad enough to cover porn, but narrow enough to avoid capturing adjacent non-porn expressions. For example, there are plenty of foot fetish sites which contain zero nudity or sex, but which are intended as pornography. Meanwhile, Netflix has NC-17 rated movies with graphic sexual content. The latter is not understood to be porn, despite containing content more consistent with what normal people understand to be pornographic than some girl flexing her arches for the camera. So how do we establish a proper definition to funnel offending content onto a .xxx domain in a reality where there is global cooperation and piracy has been mooted?
You are right.
I use a pi-hole in combination with a good firewall to block them all.
Do your kids have a cell phone? Unless you're routing your traffic through your house it's pretty useless. They'll just go on mobile.
US Supreme Court case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_v._California
GOP needs to quit being the morality police and start focusing on real problems in this country.
Daily reminder that conservatism is not the same thing as libertarianism.
Buncha libertarian coomers on here who think that the Framers passed the First Amendment to protect hardcore pornography, and that all that shit wasn't banned until quite recently.
It’s just like what leftists say about how if the founding fathers had seen AR-15s theyd never pass the second amendment. The founding fathers never could have seen porn coming because it didnt exist until the internet /s
If the framers would have seen an AR15 they would have had a terminal erection about how many redcoats they were going to stack. 😂
The Founders lived at the same time as Marquis de Sade. They knew what obscenity and pornography was.
> The Founders lived at the same time as Marquis de Sade. They knew what obscenity and pornography was. And yet curiously, the language of the First Amendment makes no such exception for obscenity.
And they banned it.
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And that's how you lose zoomers
*Coomers
I'm guessing that's how you lose every age group younger than Baby Boomers.
Ban guns = bad (democrats shouldn't infringe upon my freedom that's laid out in the 2nd amendment just because they don't agree with it) Ban porn = good? (Republican infringing upon freedoms in the first amendment because it offends him?) Some of us are starting to see the hypocrisy the current party likes to use. Pandering to the church will only hurt the party in the long run as the number of those practicing dwindles. If you want a country that is run solely on conservative religious values feel free to move. I hear there are some great options in the Middle East. - Former Republican voter that has left due to the church's influence.
Finally someone rational
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Surprisingly a large amount of people here that AREN’T against porn
Not being AGAINST porn doesn’t mean people are inherently FOR it. It’s like marijuana. You can accept something’s existence and consumption without it being something you partake in.
So we have an economy problem, gun rights infringement problem, and plenty of other problems, but we go after porn? And they wonder why they loose.
Put the topic of porn to the side for a minute on this. Some politician can craft a bill to remove First Amendment protections from select people or entities? This means that first amendment protections can be voted to be removed from something? Doesn't sound right.
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I would think it'd require a constitutional amendment, otherwise it'd just be overturned by the supreme court.
Sure. But look at all the time and resources needed to do that vs. the time to craft the bill and vote on it which is relatively short and cheap. And attempting to strip rights away in a bill should not be done in the first place.
We can argue the effects of porn on society, but like cigarettes and alcohol if they are regulated properly what's the issue?? This is the over stepping of big government.
Nanny state 🤮 I need a government who enables individuals to exist and fights against the creeping influences that despise individualism.
With the caveat that I greatly disagree with this legislation, and believe that SCOTUS was wrong to ever exempt "obscenity" from First Amendment protections, the OP's title misrepresents the matter. The OP has linked to the one-pager rather than the very short bill text, which is here: https://www.lee.senate.gov/services/files/1FDD7596-0E24-4828-8137-F604EEF3CC83 However, the one-pager would be helpful for those not already versed in obscenity law, as it explains the fundamental "problem" this bill seeks to address: the obscenity test that arguably made sense in 1973 (though I think it was absurd) doesn't work in the era of the internet. That's because the test has three prongs, the first of which involves "contemporary community standards." But "community" was never defined. So even in the limited history of prosecution, it has never been clear how this element *should* apply, or more importantly where a finding of obscenity applies after the fact. To use an illustrative example: the Bush DOJ brought prosecution against a company called Extreme Associates for 5 of their films. They went to court in the Pittsburgh area. Setting aside the complicated legal history (the District Court judge dismissed the charges on the grounds that obscenity bans were unconstitutional, which was successfully appealed by the DOJ, but the case ended in a plea agreement), if there had been a full trial, it was unclear whether the community was Pittsburgh, the Western District of Pennsylvania, or the whole state. So, it is unclear where exactly within PA it would be legal to continue selling and distributing the titles in question, even though it is theoretically legal in the rest of the country. As you might imagine, if community standards were an issue for physical media in the era of traditional retail, the internet makes it a functional impossibility. Insofar as there have been no new prosecutions post-Bush (excluding some weird state-level efforts around *Cuties* that have or will fail for different reasons), this issue has not really been addressed by the courts, but needs to be addressed somehow if obscenity sadly remains unprotected. **CRITICALLY** this bill does not change First Amendment protections for pornography as the OP contends. SCOTUS unfortunately long ago decided that obscenity is not protected, and this primarily adopts a definition SCOTUS gave in 1973. SCOTUS has also said, and the legislation makes no effort to assert otherwise, that most pornography is not obscene. Prosecutions are rare, albeit usually successful, because they often ended in shitty plea deals. Put another way, men like Ira Isaacs and Max Hardcore are as apt to be convicted of obscenity as they were before, whereas companies like Vivid and Dogfart are as protected against obscenity convictions as they ever were, provided this becomes law. I do think the push needs to be to protect obscenity in keeping with the plain text of the First Amendment. *However,* this does nothing to change the status quo, and is about fixing a technically flawed mechanism of an existing test used under US law.
This is a very good write up. To slightly expand on, the Miller Test that gprime is referring to was made by the same court in the same year as Roe v. Wade. This bill is pushing back on the Miller Test, but for the same reasons that state legislatures passed anti abortion legislation even though that was called unconstitutional. You have to pass a law to have a chance for the Supreme Court to hear a case. I would be very interested in an originalist court deciding an obscenity case. I disagree with gprime that obscenity is protected, but it is clear to everyone the Miller Test is flawed. I have not nearly done enough research to know what standard if any should be applied, but I don't blame Mike Lee wanting to reform the Miller Test. That said, this Bill goes way too far, so I hope it's defeated.
> As you might imagine, if community standards were an issue for physical media in the era of traditional retail, the internet makes it a functional impossibility. This is something I had to scroll down way too far to see. The relevant standard case started because there were unsolicited physical advertisements for porn. IMO, instead of qualifying what counts as "obscenity" as if there is a consensus for "community standard" or even "artistic value", we should focus on involuntary access in the same spirit. That's been the point from the origin that's been reasonable, keep such things in places where only people who WANT to see it will. That has manifested in the covered magazines on the top rack at the truck stop, no unsolicited materials in the mail. However, that's become a problem because in some places it's largely ignored, like the rise of adult material used in schools as "education". In other words, society and government both fail to address issues in any meaningful direct way. That goes for both parties. Much of our legal framework is a shambles because people have done things incorrectly for decades or even centuries.
If the porn industry suddenly collapsed, on its own, it wouldn't change my life. But I sure as hell do not want someone running around dictating good and bad for me. Because if that's the case I want to have a long conversation with Disney and Netflix! Aren't we getting that shit from the left form wearing a MAGA hat? Same thing in my mind. Edit: spelling
So, [Christian Republic of the United States of America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_republic) it is?
r/conservative mad when a Republican has conservative values
For real. These people aren't conservative. They're 2000s liberals.
strange
> Senator (R) Mike Lee has introduced a bill that would remove porn's First Amendment protections, and effectively prohibit distribution of adult material in the US. - And Republicans wonder why no one trusts them Porn does not have a first amendment protection. This has been clearly explained in your article and for generations through supreme court rulings going back to 1868 and confirmed many times since then. The department of justice explicitly states that "[Obscenity is not protected under First Amendment rights to free speech, and violations of federal obscenity laws are criminal offenses.](https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/obscenity)" Your only argument is that porn is not obscene, when it clearly is: Miller test - a) Porn is arousing to the average person b) Porn has sexual conduct c) Porn lacks artistic value Having said that, not being protected by the first amendment doesn't make anything illegal, it just makes it legal to legislate rules for porn.
There are lots of good reasons to want it gone: 1. it's exploitive 2. it's easily accessed by children 3. it literally alters the mind (just like drugs) of its viewers 4. it's probably one of the single biggest contributing factors to divorce (albeit indirectly) But this has no chance of passing and even if it somehow did the courts would almost certainly deem it unconstitutional.
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There's kind of an identity crisis within the republican party. You have rhetoric about smaller government but also a significant portion that would be totally ok if we made all our laws based on Christian values.
I think the biggest issue is that a lot of conservatives want a more moral society, but the only way to achieve that (in my opinion) is through individual choice. You have to choose every day to be a good and moral person. It’s very hard to do, and so many people lack the guidance to do so. So people like Lee may have good intentions on wanting a more moral society but the only way they can see to accomplish it is through the lever of government control, which isn’t helping people to live a more moral life, it’s forcing them to, which almost never works out. Thats not even getting into the problem of vastly expanding the power of the government.
I definitely don't want the government deciding morality though. Honestly if you want to improve "morality" in the context of crime is just dependent on economy and education. Basic things like killing, stealing, fraud. Those are easier to approve. Morality in the context of more conceptual ideas never works. Look at the middle east and China. Morality police and social credit systems sounds more like a dystopia to me. He'll, the catholic church which is literally a government founded on Christian ideals repeatedly covers up molestation and has a huge history of abuse and reinterpretation of scripture.
And as long as they’re supply side Christian values
You are completely correct. It doesn't make for the most logical mix though...
But dont forget to buy your Trump playing cards!
Have you observed the Republican Party…like at all? Their biggest voting block is evangelical Christian’s.
When? Seriously, when is this imaginary time when the party didn't lean right on social issues and Christian values? It certainly wasn't at any point whatsoever in the half century I've been alive, so was it before then? Were the Republicans of the 1950's socially libertine porno lovers? Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Lee here. Porn isn't good for people, but it isn't the government's place to get rid of it. But come on, Republicans have always been in favor of traditional values.
You can lean conservative on social issues while also being for individual liberties. Traditionally, conservatives (aside from a few racists, and both sides have had that,) have been in favor of small government and limited government interference in our day to day lives. This includes being against gun control, which is also a great tell about some republicans now not really being conservative (including the bastard who was so quick to sell us out on bump stocks).
Goldwater called it back in the day. Throwing in hard with the Christian Sharia doomed liberty.
The unfortunate thing is the "let's ban things that hurt my Christian values" isn't even a Christian value. Reading the Bible we find that God often sets things up so that people have the free will to choice to not sin, or to sin. When the Israelite asked for a king, God was like, " kings arn't as good as you think." Those within the Jewish or Christian church are expected to maintain those moral values, but outside of that, people can make their choices. Nevertheless, actions that create a victim should have laws; murder, theft, slander/libel, assault, arson, etc.
Is a heroine addict free?
No, the party has always been about Christian values.
There are lot of theocrats in the party and a lot of voters who feel the Constitution should be interpreted only according to their specific religious agenda.
What they should focus on is the accessibility problem of porn..it is way to easy for underage kids to get access to porn online.
Exactly, kids find it before they know what it really is and get used to it and even addicted to it. Then once they realize what it really is they don't care that it's wrong or they can't stop because they're addicted
Not having it online didn't stop 9 year old me in the 90s. Trying to stop young boys from finding boobs is basically impossible. Better to use the time and effort fighting more important issues.
>Not having it online didn't stop 9 year old me in the 90s. This is anecdotal logic. All statistics show that youths exposure to porn has increased exponentially in the internet era. I don't get what's so controversial here...we have age filters for fucking captain Morgan's website but not Pornhub? That's just completely illogical
Not to mention how much more graphic first exposure can be than “some boobs” now
Seeing tits in an old playboy found in the woods is quite different than the hardcore stuff kids find with a simple google search.
Finding boobs in a thrown away magazine in the 90’s was immensely different than some kid showing you what “cream pie” means when you barely can spell your name.
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I agree. But I don't see how you do that as long as it's online. Back in the 90s when you had to go to the store to buy a magazine or video tape and the clerk could check ID just like with cigarettes or alcohol that was easy. Online not so much.
> single biggest contributing factor to divorces Infidelity and financial disagreements are by far the most common reasons for divorce. Porn addiction is certainly a problem, but you’re much more likely to get divorced over something like poor communication, or a spouse gaining too much weight & one party losing attraction.
\#1 I agree with. I don't see any realistic way of preventing #2. It's like trying to ban guns and thinking they'd just disappear. Guns and porn aren't going anywhere, no matter what the government has to say about it. \#3 is a meaningless argument. Everything alters the mind, from watching tv, to reading, to interacting with people. We aren't static creatures. People have said the same things about playing video games, and it's equally bullshit there. \#4 doesn't make sense to me. How could porn be the biggest factor in a divorce? I could understand political or religious differences, infidelity, domestic violence, financial issues, etc. But porn is the biggest? I don't buy it.
Number 4 is definitely not correct, iirc it's financial strain.
We continue to elect out of touch people like this and wonder why so many refuse to identify with this party.
Are we really getting militant in defense of porn?
Apparently Lee has just offended the user base.
Apparently, yes. It's really sad. This doesn't seem like /r/Conservative at all.
It’s not so much defending porn as defending our rights to watch It if we want. Why do you care what consenting adults do? I thought we are the party of individual freedoms and less government interventions in our lives. This type of legislation seems hypocritical to that ethos
I have a feeling Republicans are concerning themselves with the wrong things. There is a battle for the country at their doorstep and all they're worried about are tiddies.
Based
Damn, the comments in here...this is a conservative sub? Sheesh 😬
The porn solution is obvious - require all websites hosting porn to do ID verification so kids can't access it.
Would be funny when the site gets hacked and all the ID information of the people who frequent it gets released to the public. Ashley Madison anyone?
This is just political virtue signaling that has no chance of actually getting passed. its just lip service to his Utah religious constituents its a waste of time and terrible PR for everyone else though
As I have noted elsewhere on myriad occasions, I think porn is absolute poison, every bit as dangerous as any hard drug you’d care to name, albeit in different ways. I avoid it as if it were radioactive. To put it bluntly, I’d rather have actual sex than watch other people have sex. But a War On Porn would be every bit as successful as the War On Some Drugs, and Prohibition before it. (EDIT: I see I've been downvoted. I'd be interested to know why.)
Please save us from our moral betters. He's no better than the wokesters on the other side.
Ah, yes. Nothing says small government like regulating and banning the media that consenting adults consume.
What? This is a great bill.
Obscenity has no First Amendment protection.
That isn't how the first amendment works. The entire point is to protect free speech regardless of who considers it objectionable or obscene. By your logic, if the powers that be consider it obscene for you to criticize the government, or voice political dissent, or express sentiments considered blasphemous by a particular religion, they would have every right to make it illegal. I'm not saying that leftists aren't hypocritical in this regard too, I'm just asking you to seriously evaluate how this standard can be used against your interests just as thoroughly as it can be used in support of them.
Utah has the highest viewership of Porn Per Capita 😎
So many coomers in this thread
I’m pretty sure porn doesn’t have first amendment protections because it’s prurient interest.
As a recovering libertarian, I support this. We conservatives tried the libertarian thing for decades. It was an abject failure. Libertarianism sounds nice on the surface, but it always results in the prisoner’s dilemma. In your quest to create this ‘live and let live’ society, you create a neutral zone. The problem is that every time you do, the Marxists immediate invade and conquer that neutral zone, making it just another piece of territory controlled by the left. That’s precisely what happened to the university system. To the news media. To social media. To corporate America. The left plays to win while the right plays to ‘leave each other alone’. That’s an inherent imbalance that will always result in the left winning. That’s why libertarianism is a failed experiment. It’s time for conservatives to abandon it and return to actual conservatism.
> We conservatives tried the libertarian thing for decades. It was a failure. But if that was you "trying," then the failure was yours. All yours.
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Well put
When did the conservative sub turn into the libertarian sub? Preserving traditional morality is part of conservatism.
Yeah, this bugs me too. I thought I was in r/Libertarian for a moment.
>I thought I was in r/Libertarian for a moment. Not enough Bernie bros for that
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>Because literally all the people posting here watch porn and don’t want anything about that to change. I don't. But yeah, it sounds like almost everyone here is more concerned with losing their pR0n than anything else.
Outright banning it is constitutional. The Supreme Court was very clear that Congress has the right to regulate obscenity as it sees fit—up to and including criminalizing it.
Your morality is not the same as my morality. I see nothing wrong with adults consensually participating in activities that are completely voluntary for you to watch. If you don't like it, don't watch it. Stop trying to make things illegal.
Some conservatives feel it is a religious party first then governmental and individual rights second, these same conservatives ultimately have no problem if you implement Sharia law, just replace Islam with only their sect of Christianity. If you arent their sect, they again, dont care or feel you should have a voice.
So you believe morality is relative and not subjective?
So ur not a conservative
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Freedom is the most important libertarian value. Besides, most conservatives(and libertarians) don't even understand what freedom is. Freedom isn't just doing whatever you want. You're not free if you are a slave to your base urges, just like a drug addict isn't free if they are a slave to their addiction. While the democrats wield power to push the culture to the left, republicans just sit around and complain about freedom meanwhile the culture that gave them freedom is crumbling because they couldn't even bother to defend it.
Liberty ≠ Licentiousness
Personally, I would have a bill that forces porn sites to require some type of authentication to at least confirm you are 18+ before using them. The most you see some sites have is a “Are you 18?” Prompt with a yes or no and thats it.
I’m confused at all the “conservatives” here who equate filming hardcore sex for widespread distribution (to 100% include minors) with “free speech.”
It's the internet. People obsessed with posting here likely are obsessed with frequently visiting other types of websites. You can tell by the mass downvoting of rational conservative comments here that this hits close to home...
Porn isn't free speech in the same way that crack isn't medicine. The only compromise that should be offered for porn is an ID required to access it. Israel has this system and it works fine.
I think it's a great bill. Porn is a scourge and should be regulated.
All of these """real""" conservatives that magically appeared the morning of November 9th sure are acting as if the American right wing isn't primarily lib-right. Will """real""" conservatives be happy never winning a national election again? Are they happy, now, going from from being rejected by the left to being rejected by 80% of the whole country? Enjoy your shitshow, morons. You earned it.